


Out of the Rain to Shelter Himself

by DreamingPagan



Series: Happily Ever After with Kittens [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and Alfred Hamilton being dead as dead can be, including adorable kitties, nothing bad happening here, this is straight up fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 08:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12338919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/pseuds/DreamingPagan
Summary: The day of Alfred Hamilton's death is a good one - both for Thomas and for the two kittens James brings with him when he moves in.





	Out of the Rain to Shelter Himself

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sirenswhisper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirenswhisper/gifts).



> For Penflicks - hope this makes you smile!

It happens quite out of the blue.

James might, he thinks, almost call it fate, if he believed in such a thing. He thinks, sometimes, when he’s in the presence of Thomas and Miranda, that he might, and the squirming creatures he’s currently contemplating putting in his overlarge pockets might agree with him.

“You’re full of mud,” he informs the mewling, mucky, feline scraps that he holds between his hands. “I don’t suppose -”

The rain begins to fall harder, and James sighs. He is going, he thinks, to have to take Thomas up on his recent offer of having his servants do James’ laundry - it is most certainly the only way his naval coat is going to survive this encounter, but he cannot leave the tiny, abandoned things here. It is heading on toward autumn, and the pair of them are shivering enough as it is. 

“You’re very lucky you’re cute,” he informs the kittens, and then opens his pocket and inserts them into it. They are small - too small to be alone, and he tells himself he is doing it because to reject two perfectly good mousers when Thomas’ larder has of late been visited by mice is a damn waste. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your claws to yourself.” 

He is on his way toward his shabby flat, but he cannot possibly go there now. The kittens in his pocket are singing a pitiful aria, and his landlady, should she hear it, will likely turn him away at the doorstep anyway, likely with an invitation to pack his things. Besides, both James and the kittens will be more comfortable at the Hamiltons’ residence tonight - James’ ceiling has started to develop a troubling water stain, though he has not told Thomas as much, and he has no particular desire to spend the night wondering when the first drops will hit his forehead as he tries to sleep. It takes him another half hour to reach his lovers’ house - and when he does, he is startled to see a carriage already outside, a man just stepping into it, looking grim.

“Sir - if I may enquire -” he starts, and the man looks at him with disdain. 

“I doubt it,” he answers, and James is suddenly all the more aware of his soaked clothing and bedraggled hair and the fact that his hat is likely unsalvageable at this point. 

“Is everything alright here?” he asks, and the man seems to take pity. 

“The fourth Lord Ashbourne has died unexpectedly. I have no doubt that his son, the new Earl, will be reluctant to receive visitors at this hour after such a blow, Lieutenant -?”

“James!” The call comes from the house, and Thomas steps out into the rain, concern clear on his face. “James, what on earth are you doing? You’re soaked!” 

“I came back to give you something,” James says, and the look on Thomas’ face turns grim. 

“It’s just as well,” he informs James. “I’ve only just received word - James, there’s been an accident with a carriage -”

“I heard,” James says, and Thomas gives a sigh - whether of relief or of resignation, James can hardly tell. 

“Yes. Do come in - I - well, I would appreciate your company, and you had best be here while we discuss what comes next. Good day, Sir.” This last is addressed to the man with the carriage, who gives Thomas a hard look, and then ascends into his carriage.

“Who was that?” James asks, and Thomas shakes his head.

“I’ll tell you later,” Thomas promises. He looks shaken - there is a pallor to his face that was not there an hour ago, and James can see that he is shaking nearly to equal James’ own shivering from the rain. 

“Thomas - I’m sorry. I know you weren’t close, but I would imagine -”

Thomas looks at him, and between one moment and the next, James can see him gather himself.

“Good God, James,” he says faintly, “did you walk the entire way here, in this?” He gestures to the pouring rain and the general gloominess of the evening. 

James gives an embarrassed shrug. 

“I hadn’t the money for a cab,” he confesses, and Thomas fixes him with an unimpressed stare

“James - for the hundredth time, if you need something, anything, you know I would never begrudge it - even less so now. Come in, and get that coat off before you catch your death. Hugh!” His tone has gone from distracted to focused, and there is less of the glazed expression in his eyes now. 

He calls for his manservant, and begins to take James’ coat himself - and stops, transfixed.

“James,” he says, “your coat is yowling.” 

James reaches for his coat hastily.

“Yes - damn, I hope they’re alright in there -”

He reaches into his pocket, and with some difficulty, he draws forth the first bedraggled kitten, who now looks slightly more dry, although not by much. She is shivering - and still covered in mud, but Thomas does not seem to care. He reaches out to take her from James’ hands with both of his own and, completely unconcerned about his blue silk waistcoat, he gathers her to himself. James takes the opportunity to lift out the other, and hears a gasp behind him - Miranda, it transpires, has emerged from the family parlor, and is now coming toward him, reaching for his sopping coat as it drips on her floor. 

“Hugh!” she calls again, and the manservant in question comes down the stairs, looking somewhat flustered. 

“My lady?” 

She hands him the coat, and he hastens to take it. All of this gives James a free hand, which works out perfectly because kitten number two is, apparently, the bolder of the pair, squirming and attempting to wriggle out of his grasp while her sister huddles, frightened but apparently smart enough to realize her good fortune at least in part, in Thomas’ arms. It might, James thinks, have something to do with the fact that he is at least attempting to keep his own burden away from his dress whites.

“James - where on earth did you find them?” Miranda asks, and reaches out. She takes the squirming kitten - and then blinks when the tiny cat immediately ceases her struggling, staring up at Miranda instead with wide eyes out of what James thinks might be a grey-furred face, although it is difficult to tell, dirty as both kittens still are.

“I was on my way back,” he answers truthfully. “I was passing an alley and they just - tumbled out in front of me and I thought -”

“You, little miss, are a very lucky girl,” Thomas is saying to the kitten in his arms. She has ceased shivering, almost. Then again, she is also being wrapped hastily in Thomas’ newly untied cravat, and James’ briefly wonders why he had not thought of doing the same before he had inserted both kittens into his poor, unsuspecting pockets.

“You needed a mouser,” he finishes, gesturing helplessly. “Or two. In light of what’s happened, though - I’ll understand, of course, if you can’t take them. I’m sure the butcher on Wapping Street will -”

Thomas looks up at him, eyes wide, horrified, and James briefly considers how his sentence sounds. 

“I didn’t mean it like that!” he says, exasperated, and Thomas breathes a sigh of relief. 

“I would hope not,” he says. “Well. In any case, he can’t have them, and that’s that. ” He addresses this to the cat in his arms, who merely looks up at him and says mew once again. 

“Agreed,” Thomas says solemnly, and James does not think he is imagining the smile on his lover’s face, or the melancholy there as he turns away from them, just for a moment before it’s covered with a smile. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s find out what color your little charges actually are.” 

*************************************************

They are, it transpires, a ginger tabby and a grey cat with black specks, and Thomas Hamilton is an utter sap about cats.

“Hold still!” Thomas scolds, as the ginger tabby attempts to escape his grasp, wet and slippery from the bath she’s just gotten. “There we are. Now - what shall we call them?”

“We’re doomed, “ James murmurs to Miranda. “You realize that. The bed will never be entirely empty ever again.”

“I could kiss you for finding them,” Miranda answers with a smile. “He needed a distraction. Any other man might have been elated at Alfred’s death, but -”

“Not Thomas,” James finishes, and she nods, a frustrated expression crossing her face. 

“There is one bit of good news out of all of this,” she says after a moment. She turns her eyes to James. “How would you feel,” she asks, “if we asked you to stay?” She lays a hand on his arm, giving him a meaningful look, and James feels the breath leave him. 

“Permanently?” he asks, and Miranda nods. When Thomas looks back up at them, arms full of kittens, they are grinning helplessly at each other.

“Oh good,” he says. “You’ve asked him. James - welcome home.” 

********************************************

“What shall we name them?” Miranda asks later, when they’ve gotten the kittens and themselves settled into their room. James is lazing on the bed, tucked neatly in between Miranda and Thomas as the newest member of the household. He cannot quite bring himself to stir - he is exceedingly comfortable and reveling in the knowledge that he does not, at any point tonight, have to return to his leaking flat with the squeaky floorboards and achingly cold rooms.

“They’re grey and yellow,” he muses. “I suppose I should call them lucky they’re not both at the same time - they’d look like some form of fungus.” 

“Toadstools,” Thomas says with a laugh, and then gets an odd expression on his face. “Toadstool, for one of them,” he says. “Something good that pushes up out of the muck. God knows she was covered in it!”

“You can’t call a cat toadstool,” James starts to protest, and then looks at Thomas’ face and sighs. “You can,” he concedes. “You can call the cat Toadstool.” He gives an overly dramatic sigh, and Thomas laughs, and kisses his forehead. 

“And the other?” Miranda asks, then shakes her head. “No. Nevermind - I think you had best leave the naming to me, or she’ll end up being referred to as something equally unappetizing.” 

The cat, as it happens, does not appreciate being called Dido, but she does answer to Purrdy. James tries not to look too smug, and Miranda simply rolls her eyes and pets both of them.

*********************************************

_ Two months later: _

“I’ll give you this bit of gold braid if you’ll give me back that ribbon.”

James is standing, bent at the waist, with a length of, as promised, gold braid hanging from his hand. Thomas truly does not wish to contemplate where he might have gotten it; if he had to guess, he might say that James had done some judicious pruning of one of Admiral Hennessey’s coats. 

“I know it isn’t one of Thomas’ cravats,” James says in an apologetic tone to the small, fluffy creature standing in front of him. She has, if Thomas is not mistaken, James’ hair ribbon in her mouth, as borne out by his lover’s still loose hair, which hangs about his face. “But you’ve got a whole collection of those already, and I thought -”

Toadstool the cat takes a swing at the braid, and James dances it away from her paws, stern look in place. 

“Ah!” he cautions. “The ribbon.” Toadstool the Paw hesitates, but ultimately the gold braid is too great a temptation. The cat’s eyes remain fixed upon the golden trim, and when James tosses it away from himself, the kitten darts after it, leaving ribbon and dignity behind to tussle with her newly caught toy, and James reclaims his hair ribbon, a satisfied smile on his face. He turns, and gives Thomas a sheepish expression.

“The tailor certainly wasn’t going to use it,” he says, and Thomas smiles.

“I had wondered,” he confesses, and comes toward James, motioning for his lover to turn around. He cards his hands through James’ loose hair and then gathers it, and when he’s done tying the auburn mass in a queue, he gives it a miniscule tug - just enough for James’ breath to catch a bit, and when his lover turns back around, he’s scowling.

“Are you and the cats  _ trying  _ to make me late?” he asks, and Thomas grins. 

“Of course not,” he answers. “Purrdy would never be so rude.” 

As if summoned by the sound of her name, the cat in question comes streaking down the stairs, shortly followed by her mistress.

“James! I thought you had already left.”

Miranda, Thomas thinks, has never looked more radiant. She smiles, and neither he or James can quite help returning the gesture. 

“I’m on my way out,” James says, “now that I’ve managed to get dressed.” He tugs his hat on, and Thomas briefly mourns the loss of his access to James’ shining mane of hair. 

“Well - do give the Admiral my regards,” Thomas tells him, and James smiles. 

“I shall. You’re certain you don’t want to come along? You should meet him - really, I think you might like him.”  

Thomas smiles.

“I’m sure I will. Why don’t you ask him to come to dinner with us?” 

James gives him a startled look, and Thomas feels a surge of fondness for him once again. His lover is still learning to consider himself not a guest but family - he will learn, eventually, but for now, he still appears so surprised when Thomas so easily accommodates his requests.

“Tell him he is welcome tonight, or any night this week, and we’ll make the arrangements,” he says. “And don’t you dare thank me, this is your home too.” He will make the notion stick, no matter what he has to do to -

There is a clatter somewhere in the drawing room, and Thomas winces.

“Er - James - one question,” he amends. “How does the Admiral feel about cats?”


End file.
